Storytelling – How Many Stars in the Sky? - 2 of 1
Storytelling – How Many Stars in the Sky?
Brief Summary
This book by Lenny Hort is about a little boy who, with his father, goes out into the country to count the stars. The pages are projected behind the presenter, who tells the story dramatically to make them come alive.
Other projected books should be set up and presented in a similar fashion.
Equipment Required
· Media for “How Many Stars in the Sky?” / / · Microphone and PA· Media remote control
Main Teaching Points
· When you want to explore or discover something but hit a dead end, keep trying!
· One of the best teachers a kid can have is a parent who helps that kid explore their world.
· There are thousands of stars visible in the night sky.
· Light pollution makes it very difficult to see stars or other celestial objects like planets.
· The Sun is a star.
Educational Strategy
· Storytelling is popular with all age levels, and so allows for an intergenerational learning experience.
· Stories give context to information and help people recall that information more easily.
· Storytelling is a successful teaching method for all ages, but particularly for young children.
Set Up
· Put the media remote control in your pocket.
· Hook up the microphone and PA.
· Open the media for How Many Stars to the front cover page.
Suggested ways of presenting demo
Try this:
1. Introduction
· Gather a crowd and have them sit in front of the big screen.
· Begin by asking a question and telling the audience about the story:
“Have you ever wondered how many stars there are in the sky? Can you see stars from your house? Where do you think is the best place to see many stars? Well, this is a story about a little boy who wanted to count the stars. It’s called How Many Stars in the Sky by Lenny Hort, with paintings by James E. Ransome.”
2. The Story
· Tell the story.
Operating Tips
· Be aware of where you are in relation to the screen. Try not to block essential portions of the image. Moving around helps.
· Read the book several times before performing it in front of an audience. This will allow you to just glance at the words on the screen behind you as a reminder, rather than read them, and so spend most of your time looking at the audience.
Some storytelling tips:
· Put some animation into it! You will hold the audience’s attention most successfully by varying your speed and inflection to fit the part of the story you are telling.
· Slow, deliberate words will be most easily understood.
· Move around! Lightly act out what the little boy is doing or saying in the story.
· Mimic the facial expression that you think the characters would have when you are telling their words.
· Try to disguise the media remote control as best you can to augment the illusion.
· When you turn a page, wait a moment before beginning to speak – this will give the audience a chance to absorb the images before turning their primary attention back to you. Likewise, wait a moment after finishing a page to turn to the next page.
· Believe in the story when you tell it – your audience will be transported to its world.
· For a very young audience, consider the following:
· Set the guidelines at the very beginning so that questions and participation don’t get so far out of hand that the program derails. “I’m going to tell you a story about X. I’m going to need your help, but I’ll tell you when.” “I need your listening ears on right now.”
· Involve adults; “Mom, Dad, I’m going to need your help to ____”
Questions and Answers
How many stars ARE in the sky?
There are too many stars for scientists to actually count one-by-one, so other methods of estimating the total number of stars are used. We believe that there are on the order of 1021 stars in our universe. If you write that number out, it looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This is a lot of stars! Even our own Milky Way Galaxy has 200-400 billion stars. Demo: Use the audience to demonstrate the number of stars in the universe by standing in a row and holding up a hand (or finger, if you don’t have enough people) for each zero in this number. On any given night, in a dark location and with good vision, about 1000 stars are visible with the naked eye, that is, stars with a magnitude of 6.5 or brighter.
Can we see all of the planets?
Of the nine planets, six are visible with the naked eye (though not necessarily all at the same time): Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The sixth, Earth, is visible simply by looking down at our feet.
Background materials (websites, videos, articles, digital collections links)
· Hort, Lenny. 1991. How Many Stars in the Sky?. New York, NY: Tambourine Books
· http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970115.html – estimate of number of stars in the universe
· http://www.earthvisions.net/bcp/aster/general/mag.htm - apparent magnitudes of stars
· http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/icq/MagScale.html – a scale for understanding magnitudes
· http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dgs/kensington/light.html – light pollution and viewing the night sky
Self assessment suggestions
After doing STORYTELLING several times, complete the checklist and rubric below by highlighting the box that best describes your performance. Have your team leader observe your demo then complete an identical rubric. Discuss your presentation technique with your team leader along the lines of the rubric.
Storytelling – How Many Stars in the Sky? - 2 of 1
Assessment for STORYTELLING DATE______PRESENTER______
A. Checklist of pre-requisite skills
1. Can set up and take down the props, and A-V equipment needed for this activity2. Can field questions about how many stars can we see & how many are in the Milky Way and in the whole universe
3. Knows the whole story by heart, but not necessarily the exact words
B. Rubric for STORYTELLING
QUALITY LEVELS Þ / OK / EXCELLENTTRAITS ß
Gathers an audience and prepares them to listen / Recruits a crowd and warms them up with friendly questions / Expresses a genuine concern for the individuals in the audience, both adult and children
Gives story credits / Introduces the story with the story credits / Introduces the story with the story credits and provides a context to the story
Engages audience / During the story maintains contact with audience through brief interpretive comments / During the story maintains contact with audience through brief interpretive comments or questions without digressing from the story
Vocal qualities: volume / Volume loud enough to be heard by each visitor / Can project voice so that even a whisper can be heard by everyone
Vocal qualities: articulation / Words articulated clearly / Uses resonance, vowel color and consonance to shape the dramatic impact of the story
Vocal qualities: tempo & phrasing / Tempo and phrasing are pleasing to listen to / Creates a concert-like musicality with phrasing and tempo
Vocal qualities: volume modulation & inflection / Uses volume modulation and inflection to convey feeling / Produces mystery, excitement, fear, etc with vocal interpretations
Vocal qualities: vocal color / Changes vocal quality to indicate a distinction between the narrator a and a new speaker / Creates distinct, appropriate and consistent vocal characterizations
Connects the story to other museum exhibits & activities / Suggests other exhibits that the story connects to / Asks what visitors may be interested in, and gives helpful guidance about where they can follow through on their interest.